


we're running still (watching seasons change)

by Anonymous



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Childhood Friends, Friends to Lovers, Growing Up Together, M/M, Mutual Pining, Relationship Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-04
Updated: 2017-01-04
Packaged: 2018-09-14 17:42:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9196526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: The times Hajime runs after Oikawa, throughout the years.(And maybe the other way around, too.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to [Dawn](http://archiveofourown.org/users/eccentrick) (whose music recs always brighten my day), [Jazz](http://archiveofourown.org/users/indigostardust/pseuds/indigostardust) (who's always there to keep my insecure ass in line), [Molly](http://archiveofourown.org/users/darkgaaraluver/pseuds/darkgaaraluver/works) (who stayed up late to check this one last time), and [French](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Frenchibi) (who's always kind and enthusiastic even when dealing with my litany of questions). They're all amazing people and without them this fic would've never been finished.

**4.**

Hajime feels watched, the hair on the back of his neck bristling.

He turns around, not at all trying to suppress an irked grunt, crisp summer grass heavy with morning dew crackling underneath his feet. “Are you a creep or what?” asks Hajime, pointing the head of his butterfly net at the intruder.

From his place slightly behind a tree, said intruder just widens his eyes and flaps his mouth open, as if he’s _actually surprised_ he’s been found out. Then he pouts, walking around the trunk to stand in front of his hiding—no, _spying_ —spot, chin held up to the air. “I am _not_ ,” he huffs out, mostly indignant.

“You’ve been following me,” Hajime counters. “Yesterday, too. That's really creepy, so you’re a creep.”

The boy’s cheeks redden, obvious on his paler skin even in the dawn’s light. “That’s because you’re so slow!” He plants both hands on his waist haughtily, a buck-toothed grin breaking out on his face. “I just keep running into you, slowpoke.”

It’s Hajime’s turn to go slack-jawed, but he snaps it shut and grits his teeth. Hajime is an _adventurer_ , and he is _not_ slow. “You—”

The way Hajime growls it out does not seem to scare the boy. Instead, he sticks his tongue out, pulls down the skin below one eye with a nail-bitten finger, and blows a grating raspberry.

Such is a testament of how annoying Oikawa Tooru is that Hajime, stubborn but _oh what a good child_ Hajime, chases him and his equally annoying giggles until hours later the sun reaches its noon perch and ends up beating them both to the ground.

(Hajime is not slow; with this firm and surely tested belief, he just points out that Oikawa’s a bit taller and thus has the unfair advantage. Oikawa laughs again from where he lies sprawled on his back beside Hajime, pokes at him with his toes, and loudly mentions just how much in denial Hajime is.

The race continues soon after that.)

* * *

**6.**

Hajime is lost.

It’s not a matter of a few wrong turns anymore. The forest around him is denser, packed with flourishing bushes and saplings and bigger, older-looking trees, and the ground is almost entirely covered with dead foliage and brambles. All in all quite different from the more well-kept tourist area Hajime and his classmates had arrived at when they got out of the bus. It must’ve been such a gradual change for him not to notice.

(That, or he was too lost in his own head, giddy with the sense of wonderment and paying little attention to anything else but the enticing opportunity of finally exploring _somewhere uncharted_ , because backyards and parks had inevitably become too small for someone like Hajime.)

Either way, he has little idea of where he is right now.

At this realization, his first thought is disturbingly not about the danger of his predicament but how eerie the cicadas’ silence is without a familiar incessant chatter rambling on, how pressing it all seems without another's hand bunching up the fabric of his clothes, a warmth just as persistent in keeping up by his side. When they get lost it is often Oikawa's fault—sneaking out in ungodly hours, his tugging Hajime through less-traveled roads and overgrown fields in a quest for places where the night sky is clearer and stars shine brighter, even if it means straying too far from home. But this time, Hajime decides with a grumble, he finds himself to blame.

Dusk is settling into night as the early autumn chill starts to blanket the day, though Hajime still feels warm from all that trekking. He flips open his borrowed phone, finds only _No signal_ on a cracked screen, and clicks his tongue at such err in this time of need. He’s brought his backpack and sleeping bag with him as the trip includes a sleepover, so he isn’t in that much danger of freezing overnight, and more so since he's huddled in the thickest jacket his mother had insisted he wear.

So he treads on, a one-eighty turn taken, retracing steps and revisiting paths but walking forward regardless. He wonders when exactly they’d separated, what could’ve caught Oikawa’s interest _just so_ that he didn’t have time to bother Hajime about it, to drag him along for the ride. Wonders if Oikawa is lost, too. And at this he stops, halts his step with a _crunch_ of crushed leaves. Breathes deep, in and out, cool air pleasantly fresh and prickly, and tries to let a hand twiddling with the straps of his backpack be the only sign of his fret. Calm this newfound thudding inside his chest.

(In that moment, Hajime isn’t sure if he’s looking for the way back, or the way toward Oikawa instead.)

A rustle off to the side has him whipping his head around, trying to locate it in the oncoming darkness. He catches a glimpse of a fox—a tiny one, a kit for sure—before it skitters away behind an undergrowth, and sighs a breath he didn't know he’d been holding. There’s more crackling and scuttling, and Hajime thinks the kit might’ve got itself stuck. He considers if it needs help, if he _could_ help, except the noise is growing louder and so much closer, faster. Heavy, not the weight of a small animal at all but a pair of hurried footsteps—

Something—some _one_ —tackles Hajime from behind before he could react and they go down onto a bed of autumn foliage. The leaves, crackling dry but wet with dew, scratch at Hajime’s face and irritate his nose—would’ve pricked his eyes out had he not closed them on reflex—but it’s nothing compared to the deafening _Iwa-chaaan_ bawling in his ears. Arms wrap around his stomach and _squeeze_ , and Hajime lets out a hitched _oomph_ as the sudden pressure wrings the air out of his lungs even more than the fall itself did.

Shaking off the surprise, Hajime scrambles and rolls over only to end up on his back, looking up at—

“Iwa-chan!” Oikawa wails, tears streaming down everywhere and nose just as runny. He reaches out with both hands and squishes Hajime’s cheeks until his sight turns blurry. “You’re alive! You didn’t get eaten by _azuki babā_!”

 _What_ , Hajime can only think. He wrenches Oikawa’s grip off, the usual rebuke at the tip of his tongue, but then Oikawa bawls again, shoving his face into Hajime’s neck, and while that mop of hair is fluffy it also tickles _a lot_ and Hajime does not appreciate it right now. He tugs them up to a sitting position and slaps Oikawa on the cheeks, gets him to focus on Hajime, watery eyes and gross snots be damned. “Calm. Down,” Hajime stresses, even though he himself feels a confusing muddle of exasperation and shaky relief welling up. “I’m not gonna let a _youkai_ get me. You know I can more than fight them off.”

Oikawa mumbles something but it comes out muffled since his face is all scrunched up, so Hajime lets go. “You were gone,” Oikawa says through a sniffle. “I wandered around a bit but couldn't find you after, and then it was getting dark and the teachers said you were missing but that I didn’t need to worry because they were looking _really_ hard.” He huffs, sounding miffed, and crosses his arms in front of his chest. “Well, _I_ found you first. They knew n’thing.”

Hajime just stares at him for a while before raising his fists and kneading the sides of Oikawa’s head none too gently, ignoring the other boy’s indignant squawk. “You idiot. Now we’re _both_ lost.”

With lips pursed, one cheek puffed out in his signature petulant display, Oikawa says, “I’m not _stupid_ , y’know,” and digs into the pocket of his jacket. He brings out his smartphone and shows Hajime the screen, glaring bright in the surrounding darkness. “My sister installed an app that can track where I go, and this is good with the signal.”

The artificial glow makes his eyes gleam; Hajime is tempted to count each reflected speck, stars in Oikawa’s own galaxy. “How did you know where to look for me in the first place?”

Oikawa grins. “You’ve always found me, so what makes you think I couldn't do the same?”

* * *

(Whatever it was that guided Oikawa toward Hajime doesn’t seem to side with them as they search for the right path back to camp. Even with some technological help, it takes them a long while, and so they spend the night daring each other to do increasingly ridiculous tasks and bickering about the shapes of constellations on the clear sky.)

* * *

**8-11.**

Oikawa is gifted.

He is not the adventurer of Hajime’s kind. His skin stays pale, doesn’t get marked by the sun in his ventures for _youkai_ and stars, and then for aliens and still more stars as the years wear on. Hands calloused from accepting challenges to climb trees and walls and _reach higher_ but not as hardened as Hajime’s own. Scrapes on his knees and elbows that heal too fast and seamless, unlike Hajime’s once broken arm and other faintest of scars.

But _volleyball_ —

Hajime watches on as Oikawa fumbles with a white-green-red ball a bit too big for his grip, as he tosses it up in the air only for it to fall and hit him straight on the face. Hajime laughs, as is expected from him, but on the inside he has an inkling that steel resolution in Oikawa’s eyes, in the crinkles of his brows and mouth parted in a sharp grin, means this is more than simply fiddling with new things.

(Far from a fling, it is instead something waiting to be made bloom.)

Oikawa starts to attend the local grade-school volleyball classes and by natural progression Hajime does, too. If it wasn’t evident how gifted Oikawa is before, it is now. While he does trip and flail at first he quickly settles into it—his fingers nimble, dives and steps fluent, a more than average strength behind his spike.

Hajime is not blind. He doesn’t come with his best friend _just because_ ; he has also taken a liking for volleyball, but rather than having precise control over the ball he prefers the rush of his palm hitting it and transferring all that restless energy into something tangible, to hear thunderous echoes as it slams onto the opposite of the court.

“What a brute, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa notes with a snicker. He gets a glare in response, but there’s no denying the grins they’re both sporting or the excited adrenaline buzzing in their still-stretching bones.

Hajime doesn’t improve as fast or smooth as Oikawa, or understand the most complex techniques as well, doesn’t really think he’d want to play for the rest of his life. At this, and when Oikawa begins analyzing each match with enthusiasm and a critical eye and speaks of being the best and _conquering the world_ _together_ , Hajime tries not to feel left behind.

* * *

**14.**

“You’re running away.”

Out of all the insults and berating he’d come up with, this is what finally has Oikawa pausing his frenzied regime. Fingers dig sharply into the hundredth ball he’s about to serve, but he doesn’t leave the ground. He looks at Hajime, then, his smile so saccharine sweet Hajime tastes a lingering bitterness at the back of his own tongue. He wants to scour it off, already mentally tallying the wry threats and physical violence needed, because only those sort of things stand a chance against Oikawa’s fortress when it’s been built this high and his sights become too obscured.

“Whatever does that mean, Iwa-chan?” comes the question, a thinly-veiled retort. He bounces the ball on the floor once, twice, is back to staring at the view beyond the net.

“This entire thing,” Hajime shoots back, bending down to retrieve a stray volleyball. Squeaks of rubber soles on parquet, and then the roaring boom of a jump serve smacked and crash-landing, not that far off from a cannon fired with how it resounds throughout the spacious gym. “You know how stupid this is, overworking yourself every day. It won’t achieve anything in the long run, and you know better than anyone.”

Oikawa picks up another another ball from the almost empty crate, spins it as he concentrates on enemies invisible but to him.

“You’re just numbing yourself with this.”

When Oikawa lifts the ball for yet another serve, Hajime spikes one to the back of his head. His surprised shriek is pleasingly genuine.

* * *

Oikawa is gifted, but he is not a genius.

“Oikawa,” Coach starts, right in the middle of a practice match after Oikawa’s set-up went wayward one too many times that day, “go take a break for now.”

Oikawa doesn’t look at him for confirmation, doesn’t make a fuss. With back straight and a stiff gait, he walks to sit on the bench, offers Kageyama the routine high-five on the way in only the most perfunctory of gesture. Hajime focuses back to the match, to the opposite team’s strategical placement for the next rally, and ignores the bewildered looks they give in return, tunes out his own team’s speculative whispers. For him, the tense line of Oikawa’s shoulders is enough.

Kageyama tosses with near-freak pinpoint accuracy, but it is tailored solely for strategy, ever-changing to fit the situation. As the match continues on, Hajime thinks of how Oikawa would always toss for the players, would recognize subtle habits and quirks and use them to bring out the best in everyone. From then on, no matter how many spikes Hajime hits or points he scores, his palm feels bare, and at the end it is red and stinging with an uncanny absence of _perfect sync_.

“Where’s Oikawa-san?” asks a second-year libero, his eyes flitting across their group as they stroll together to the school gate, the afternoon practice all wrapped up behind them. Hajime’s feet are heavy, as if he’s moving against gravity, some flow of nature.

A guilty-looking first-year scratches nervously at his cheek. “Ah, he said he was gonna stay late for practice.”

“Again, huh?”

“Hmm. He must really love volleyball.”

Fighting the urge to sigh at himself, Hajime finds himself turning in the opposite direction. Pulled along by something inevitable, he decides to just throw a wave over his shoulder in casual parting. He hears his teammates’ chuckles behind him (“I was wondering how long until Iwaizumi gave in!” and “Well, they’re glued at the hips, those two...” and “Don't overdo it, you guys!”), fading slowly with each stride. The gym ahead of him is still lit, a soft beacon in the lights-out school grounds. He doesn't intrude. For a moment just standing there by the door, he tracks the perfect trajectory and sheer power of Oikawa’s serve; the way he’s hunched over afterward, hands braced on his knees like it’s the one thing that prevents him from collapsing, his breaths strained and heaving.

Then Kageyama is there, a sudden presence appearing from the shadows. He’s all eager smile and awed anticipation as he again asks for Oikawa to teach him, his voice nothing short of sincere admiration, a ball already held in offering. Oikawa swings his hand in a backhand motion and Hajime is rushing between them, catching it by the wrist before it makes impact.

There’s yelling, apologies to Kageyama—one gruff as usual, the other barely a murmur—and then Oikawa is reciting too many _I_ ’s where there should be _we_ ’s and _us_ ’s and Hajime thinks, _That’s fucking it_ , and just bangs their heads together to snap him out of it.

Oikawa is chasing something only he himself can see and Hajime can’t run alongside when that road doesn't exist for him, a precarious cliffside where one end of it cuts off. _A leap of faith_ —in other circumstances he might consider it, _would_ do it with _a frightening certainty_ , but not now, not when it is clear Oikawa isn’t paving his own path but is sidetracked instead. Still, Hajime tries and _tries_ to follow, close as possible, if only so he can reach out to him, shout and drill some sense into that thick, obstinate skull of his. Pull him back when he’s lost in the haze of that undying ambition.

So he does, shakes him out of it and reminds him that _nobody is fighting alone_ and of _the strong six on the court_ , all delivered with the accompanying force that comes with being _them_. At the trail end of Hajime’s _...with the six of us, the strong are even stronger, dumbass!_ Oikawa just laughs, and with a bruised forehead and a bleeding nostril and a _real_ smile he says, to Hajime:

_Suddenly, I feel invincible._

* * *

(That day and the many ones to come, Hajime does not add more to this non sequitur, that maybe it’s not just Oikawa.

Later on, he discovers that he doesn't need to.)

* * *

**15.**

At fifteen, there are changes somewhat faster and further than expected. They’re taller, shoulders and back broader, bodies finally growing to better fit well-trained muscles. Their voices deepen, and somehow the world seems wider, much too large for their grasp or childhood promise to conquer.

(Some extras, in Oikawa’s case:

  1. An even more confident and annoyingly cheerful skip to his steps, and a blinding charm to his trademark facade that Hajime can see through anyway.
  2. Laughter that no longer crack mid-way but is now sort of melodious, even when he snorts, much to Hajime’s crumbling resolve to find them not at all endearing.
  3. Crowds and _hordes_ of fans, dreamy sighs and lilted cheers trailing him and small boxes of homemade delicacies offered.  
  
Oikawa likes these, a sweet-tooth to the core, and is never the one to reject such gifts. The closest Hajime can give to match is store-bought milk breads but the occasional act lights Oikawa up anyway. He’d beam his unadulterated excitement, making exaggerated happy chirps as he takes a first bite all over again, and his pleased moans that follow are close to obscene—  
  
Hajime manages to light Oikawa up each time, without fail, no gourmet cooking skill required. For now, it is comfort enough.
  4. A larger-than-life glint in his eyes, knowing and dangerous, seeking the best ways to nurture each of their new teammate’s potential and crush enemies who infiltrate their court.
  5. Some troublesome penchant for being so, _so_ tactile. He’d rest his head on Hajime’s shoulder, using it as a makeshift pillow on post-match bus rides or just clinging to Hajime’s arm like a koala. He’d drape himself all over him in the most inconvenient of times and _would not_ let go until Hajime pays him his full attention.  
  
During breaks or lunch or timeouts Oikawa would slump against Hajime’s side, especially when he’s been upset at something he decides to suspend to himself, and leans in more and more until his head slumps on his lap, claiming it for a powernap. Hajime can’t help but tense up at the contact, the warmth pouring out from Oikawa’s presence.  
  
He wants to soak in it, card his fingers through places other than that head of soft hair, rub his thumb on the nape of his neck and trace the callouses on his hands, and wonders if all of Oikawa is just as warm—



_Stop, Hajime._ )

At fifteen, far along into the year, Hajime learns that _running after_ and _catching up_ would not measure against everything. Looking on from the outside as Oikawa laces his fingers together with another girl’s, yet another confession accepted, hearty chuckles and chaste pecks on the cheeks and then lips a sure progression in the future, he is reminded that nothing has the right to hold Oikawa Tooru still. That running after and alongside him ever since either of them can remember does not mean he can keep him closeforever.

* * *

**16.**

_When you run, you’ll need to take a break eventually._ This is what Hajime thinks as he crosses the school boundary on one particularly cold spring night, for once homeward-bound alone. Distance eats at the sounds of rubber on sweat-slicked parquet and ruthless serve after serve, yet they continue to echo in his mind.

“It wasn't your fault,” is what Oikawa repeats scarcely a week later as he’s leaning back against the wall next to his futon, his knee still visibly swollen; Hajime sits on the edge, twisting the sheet in clenched fists.

A hollow laugh, a sigh. “You’re right, you know. You’re not my mom. I did this to myself.”

When the silence that settles afterward breaks by a deep and resolute breath taken, shaky in only the slightest, he looks up, right into his ~~childhood friend~~ ~~crush~~ ~~teammate~~ ~~first love~~ best friend’s eyes and the smoldering determination in them.

“Don’t worry,” Oikawa says, and sends him a grin tinged with all the colors of challenge and _a promise once made_. “I’m not going to lose. I _will_ catch up, so don't you dare slow down on me.”

Hajime laughs, part amused at how obvious the statement is, that _of course_ Oikawa’s going to catch up (and, oh, how he himself has become _such a believer_ ), and part in ache, because Oikawa is always looking that far ahead he fails to notice Hajime has been running behind for more than a while.

Even so, he raises a fist, palm down and knuckle awaiting to bump the other's, and thinks of not letting him slip away so easily as their hands meet in another promise sealed.

* * *

**17-18.**

“Ready?”

“Yeah.”

“One, two—”

 _Rip_ , comes the sound of paper torn in unison. Hurried but tentative. Care taken for tradition’s sake rather than of the contents inside.

“What does yours say, Iwa-chan?”

“Ah, I didn't get in. I was kind of expecting that, actually… Yours?”

“I don't know. Haven't looked.”

“Oikawa.”

“Hmm?”

“Stop that. You’re crumpling your letter.”

“Doesn’t matter—the scholarship grants me a pass anyway. Really, why did they bother printing this out and formally sending it here? What a waste of paper and ink and forest life—”

“Oikawa.”

At the tone, exasperated and knowing, Oikawa peels his gaze off from the glow-in-the-dark stars flecking one wall of his bedroom, the ceiling, from everywhere but meeting Hajime’s until now. “What?” he asks with a sharp bite coarsely dulled, sweetened, like it tends to be when he’s stirring away from a topic.

Hajime breaches on. “I’ve been thinking. About other majors and careers. Non-volleyball ones.” He keeps their sights on one another and looks for telltale signs dreaded, for brows too furrowed or jaws clenched too hard or lips stretched thin in a smile not reaching. Finding none but Oikawa’s rapt stare, he continues, “So I’m disappointed, sure, but it’s—it’s not absolute. There are options, and I’ve got an eye on one here in Miyagi.”

Oikawa sighs, a quiet one, just an off-beat rise and fall of his chest, and Hajime finds the words he’s once practiced for this lodged in his throat. “I—”

“I know.”

“—huh?”

“I know you don’t plan to play forever,” Oikawa says, tightly composed, setter’s hands turning and folding his letter into shapes learned a decade younger and retained in muscle memory. “At least, not that way. I saw how you were focusing on your biology and chemistry scores, and they really were higher than ever.”

“...Coming from you, that sounds insulting.”

“Rude, Iwa-chan!” A crudely-made paper airplane comes flying in, but Hajime lightly blocks it with a flick of his wrist.

He can see the tension easing away, then. Some more than familiar warmth filling the space left between them. Hajime welcomes it, and feels one corner of his mouth curl up in response. At the plane’s forlorn voyage, Oikawa completes a pout with cheeks puffed out, strangely contrite, and returns to their spot on the floor with arms crossed. “It’s true, though—top three in our grade, even. And the textbooks you borrowed from the library, and that one time you left your laptop open on your browser… Sports medicine, huh?”

“Yeah,” Hajime says with a nod to himself just as much his friend, picking up the fallen craft. “Yeah, I want to work with athletes and sport-related injuries. Helping others and all that.”

“Such pure and noble intentions, Iwa-chan.”

“But you knew? All this time, and you didn’t even mention it once?”

“Don’t laugh,” Oikawa warns him after a briefest of pause, “but I’m—scared.”

Hajime waits, thumbing out creases in paper airplanes to busy a quirk. He allows himself a glance out the lone window on a whim, as if there he’ll find the source of Oikawa’s fear and demand its departure like he’d done so long ago when Oikawa wouldn’t sleep because _youkai, Iwa-chan! They’ll eat us in our sleep!_ It’s winter-dark out, the sky clearer and sharper, yet stars both colossal and diminutive still can’t overcome the crowding brightness of streetlights.

“I mean, what will happen to us?” Oikawa says, voice low as a whisper but still distinct in the silence of the room; Hajime hopes he’s contained the hitch in his breath, the split-second flutter of his heartbeat. “I’ll be fine and just as charming, of course,” Oikawa goes on, fluent and almost sing-song. “But it’ll be less obvious because there won’t be a grumpy caveman nearby with which to compare my beauty—”

“I’m going to hit you.”

“Wait, no—ow!” Oikawa yelps, cowering under the force of a Godzilla plush thrown at him with Hajime’s arm strength. He scrambles away as Hajime readies to lob a BB-8. “This just proves what a brute you are! Iwa-chan, why must you always resort to violence?!”

“Why are _you_ an ass all the time?” Hajime growls out, and pins the blame on whatever exertion he’s done for the state of his racing heart, because dealing with Oikawa has always been an exercise in tenacity. “And don’t worry. I said I’d ever only do that to you, didn’t I?”

“Hmph.” When Hajime decides to have mercy on _this dork_ and just plops back down on folded legs, Oikawa deems the situation abated, and crawls to sit across from him, dramatically cautious. “Anyway,” he starts again, drawing in his knees and perching his chin on top, “what if you get lost trying to find your classes? And what if no one ever finds you and you die alone from malnourishment in some dingy hallway because you always forget to charge your phone the night before?”

“...That’s unnecessarily specific. Need I remind you that you were always the reason we got lost when we were kids?”

“Well, I wasn’t the one who sat in the wrong class on his first day of school and didn’t realize it until lunch.”

“That was _one time_ compared to your _tens_. And you’re avoiding the real issue here. What are you scared of?”

This time, Oikawa considers his answer a moment longer, and says, somewhat hushed, “I’m selfish.”

Hajime snorts. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

“Hey! I’m trying to have a heart-to-heart here!”

He smiles, mostly hidden; at things wistful threatening to spill over and erode his outward expression to match its flow, he just wills the tides away, like he’s always done since _fifteen and falling in love_ , and feels it aches in the best of ways it can. “Sorry, sorry. Go on.”

Oikawa’s smile, in turn, is bittersweet. “So,” he begins, ever the anecdotalist, “once, there was a handsome young man on the cusp of adulthood who had his sight on conquering the world and its shitty law of _nature’s best_ , and this smart, selfish person did not want to let his best friend go.”

Oh.

“He was always afraid of being left behind, of second places and _good, but not good enough_. Yet all his life he’d been relegated to _second place_ , anyway. Still, he didn’t stop clawing his way to the top, fighting for every scrap of talent he’d got.”

Hajime’s crumpled the paper plane.

(In musing, he thinks of how it didn’t have the chance to truly soar.)

“But—to his best friend, it seemed this person was their _first and only_ ”—Oikawa’s breath stutters, and Hajime can see him tightening the grip around his own wrist, as if for the sole purpose of _something to hold on to_ —“and though he wanted nothing less than the best for his friend’s happiness, he was not selfless enough to let that position go for someone else to take. Girlfriends or boyfriends or—

“Because while he could live with being replaceable in the things he did, he couldn’t imagine...”

When it stops at that and there’s nothing else but a hush settling over, Hajime decides to let the paper plane go, now crinkled and all too soft from clammy hands. He raises his head, wondering when he’d looked away, and finds Oikawa has turned and burrowed his face into his knees, just a mop of hair sticking out and arms straining to wrap around himself even tighter.

Grasping his own letter, he crumples it into a ball and chucks. It bounces off Oikawa’s head, not at all ruffling the milk-chocolate locks that infuriatingly look almost always perfectly tousled, and flops sadly onto the floor to roll by Hajime’s feet.

“He was right, you know,” Hajime points out. “He _was_ selfish.”

He comes close to biting his own tongue off at Oikawa’s flinch, but. “And he was a real narcissist, too. Self-centered, he didn’t even consider his friend’s feelings. Or maybe he had, but didn’t have the guts to ask”— _ha_ —“that maybe they felt the same about him.”

Still nothing, so Hajime scoots over to kneel in front of him. He reaches out blindly, cups his hands over what he’s sure is the baby-smooth skin of Oikawa’s cheeks, and meets little to no resistance when he lifts his face up to align it with his own. It’s not entirely the same as when they were kids, when Hajime would do so to calm Oikawa down, get him to focus on Hajime only and not whatever it was that had bothered him. There are no tears or runny nose, just eyes redder than usual, lips quivering and breaths held back, and maybe a slight stiffness from maintaining such composure.

“Because to them, this person might also be their first and only.”

* * *

Come graduation day, after the slaps on the back and rib-crushing hugs and memories captured in way too many films, for once it is Iwaizumi who takes Tooru’s hand and pulls him along less-traveled roads and through fields a bit overgrown. His confused squawks turn into a hearty chuckle as they eventually pass by scenes elusive and landmarks recollected, and before long they’re both running on their own. Still in their school uniforms, they arrive at a stretch of weathered fence dividing paved road from a shallow hillside and its meadows, a sheer expanse of land nature has claim over and from which the stars at night seem _peculiarly bright_ , and relish a moment of rest after all that running.

When their breaths are not as labored, cheeks still flushed, Iwaizumi tells him, “Close your eyes.”

At this, Tooru shoots him a dubious look, and prods at him for _all the reasons_ _why_ while also offering his own increasingly questionable theories. In the end, realizing that Iwaizumi’s probably had years to get used to his antics, curiosity wins all the same; and so he follows, giving Iwaizumi a half-lidded gaze before shutting his eyes, trust between them.

Hush reigns over the next few seconds, just the rustle of wind caressing the grass and leafy trees, faint rasp of shoes on gravel, the drumming of his own still-racing heart. Tooru shifts from one foot to another, the darkness ahead making him so painfully aware of his other senses. When hot breaths ghost over his skin, he damn nearly jumps back if not for the hand that reaches out to clasp one of his own—and it is as grounding as fourteen years of knowing its warmth can be.

The kiss feels like a trick of the mind, at first. Maybe just a brisk puff of air, or an accidental brush of skin, whatever it is that Iwaizumi is scheming. But, _oh_ , it soon proves itself to be more than that. It’s soft and chapped and _there_ , its presence and every point of touch amplified by his lack of sight _and_ the leftover endorphin rush, and Tooru wants to laugh because of course Iwaizumi would choose this occasion—might’ve _planned_ _it_ , even—where their senses are sharpened and hearts already galloping and everything feels _so much more_.

Iwaizumi doesn't push further, seems a tad hesitant with how he ever-so-slightly draws back after each firm graze, so Tooru slides a hand to cover his less calloused but rougher one, laces their fingers together and holds on. This time, he doesn't doubt the smile forming against his own lips.

When they part, Tooru keeps his eyes closed, if only so he can savor the lingering warmth and tame his raging pulse. It is when Iwaizumi’s hand leaves him to the evening chill that he pries them open, still somewhat breathless.

Iwaizumi has a leg swung over the fence and is soon standing on the hillside. Tooru tilts his head to the side, wondering, remains dazed from the kiss and relief-thrill-he’s-so-goddamn- _happy_ surging within. Iwaizumi looks at him, then, and sends him a grin bright enough to rival most stars Tooru’s observed; just as Tooru works out the _downright challenge_ in that, Iwaizumi’s already turning around, sprinting down the hill and to the meadows sprawled in the distance.

(Tooru will forever deny that he spends an embarrassing amount of time loitering there with mouth agape, comically stumped.

He will not, however, cease to smile at this memory.)

Smiling so damn wide it’s starting to hurt his face, Tooru laughs, thinks of how Iwaizumi still manages to pleasantly surprise him through all these years, and decides to run alongside him after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is based on TheFatRat - Monody's lyrics, and when writing the last scene I listened to [Eternal Way](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5znR_jV5q68) on repeat. 
> 
> Sorry for not being that active in the past month ^^" I've got more WIPs on the way now~ 
> 
> Kudos, comments, and [reblogs](http://astersandstuffs.tumblr.com/post/155385077169/haikyuu-were-running-still-watching) are always appreciated. Especially since I'm still a newborn foal in this writing stuff.
> 
> ~~Also there might be a sequel I'm sorry~~
> 
> Thanks for reading! Come yell about HQ with me on [tumblr](http://astersandstuffs.tumblr.com).


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